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Global warming has accelerated significantly

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Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#631

Post by doubleg »

mbgerring wrote: post #544

The only extant “X-risk” is, and always has been, climate change. “AGI” is science fiction, and actually-existing AI is making climate change harder to deal with, by increasing electricity demand on our fossil-fuel-powered grid with no attendant increase in clean generation. Serious engineers need to stop whatever they’re doing and work on this problem. Also, if you’re hiring: I’m an expert on the U.S. regulated util…

To work on this problem check out https://workonclimate.org/ Founded by two ex-Google employees.

From their About: “Work on Climate quickly built the world’s largest and most successful community of its sort – with tens of thousands of members around the globe, thousands of whom have found climate jobs and started companies”.

Not affiliated but I ran into this initiative recently.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#633

Post by shashurup »

adrian_b wrote: post #621
shashurup wrote: post #548

To be honest, looking at Paleogene climate reconstruction I believe it was the best time in earth history. The way things go shows us that all attempts to resist burning fossils are quite futile. It takes some kind of catastrophe to change people habits. The level of coordination required to achive the goal of lowering emissions looks unachievable to humanity. We have enough time to adapt, adaptation is more reasonab…

During the Paleogene, the terrestrial plants and animals were very different from those of today. Now on all continents and islands most of the big animals and plants are humans, domestic animals and cultivated plants. The wild animals and plants, even if they are much more varied, with many thousands times more species than the domestic ones, are much smaller in quantities, with only a few kinds that are non-negligi…

I don't see that everything except Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Siberia and Antarctica was inhabitable. For instance in Eocene the climate remained fairly warm and homogeneous (the most uniform in the Cenozoic).

From the equator to the poles, forests grew. Fossilized remains of cypress and sequoia have been found on the Arctic Ellesmere Island, and palms — in Alaska and northern Europe.

Equatorial and tropical forests (with palms, fig trees, and sandalwood trees) persisted in Africa, South America, India, and Australia.

Eucalypts, sequoias spread widely, and new types of broad‑leaved trees appeared.

By the end of the Eocene, rainforests were preserved only in the equatorial parts of South America, Africa, India, and Australia — due to the onset of cooling.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#634

Post by M95D »

epistasis wrote: post #586
M95D wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where it was cheap. That "bunch of capitalists"... why are you avoiding the true word: "China"?

That's not the true word though, is it? It's an effort of capitalists the world over. And crucially, German government incentives when solar was still very expensive.

I can't say anything about the German gov. I don't live there and I have no info. But I wouldn't call bureaucrats "capitalists" either.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#636

Post by pcthrowaway »

ActorNightly wrote: post #593
pcthrowaway wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the reason Trump is talking about annexing Canada is because of our vast swathes of land which have historically been too cold for settlement, which are going to become much more temperate in the near-ish future.

I really wanna know the kind of person you are that thinks that Trump makes logical decisions.

I didn't say it was logical, I said there was some kind of rationale.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#637

Post by morphle »

reducesuffering wrote: post #609
morphle wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We MUST MUST stop burning things. Yes, we must. It is so rare to see someone saying this in public. Thank you for this simple clarity. Stop burning everything! Fossil fuel, wood, plastic, garbage, paper. Stop making methane. We only need solar energy at 1 dollarcent or eurocent (it will get much cheaper still!!) and a little batteries for the convenience of using electricity when the sun does not shine. In the nort…

> Stop burning everything! Fossil fuel, wood, plastic, garbage. I don't understand the wood argument. Isn't it widely accepted we need to do burns to manage forests? Wood is a short-term cycle of carbon. It releases when it burns but frees up space to capture it right after. When people live on rural plots and trees fall, should they burn for heat (and lessen needing other energy sources) or let it decompose and caus…

Wood and plant burning requires a longer nuanced answer than the Hacker News format allows. Humanity must not cut forests or grow plants unnecessarily. If you must use wood to build a house -(there are better and cheaper materials in terms of energy and climate change enhancing emissions, see for examples Amory Lovins book Reinventing Fire or his lectures on Youtube) - then first grow those trees in a place that has no natural forest. And then do not burn the wood after you demolish the house. Do not use wood from forest, humans should let the forest manage itself.

Same with clearing the underbush of Meditaranian and hotter climate forest to prevent forest fires. If humanity had not managed those forest (grazing animals, building roads, harvesting) in the first place than there would have been no buildup of excess material that sustain wildfires past its natural rate.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#639

Post by drnick1 »

bko wrote: post #409
jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

> There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon emissions.

Which restrictions on AC? I know that Europeans don't use AC as much as the US because of a mixture of historical and cultural reasons, but I wasn't aware of any restrictions. What prevents someone in Europe from buying and installing an AC unit in their own home?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#640

Post by acdha »

jimnotgym wrote: post #575
crystal_revenge wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it's clear we will never do anything to slow the progression of climate change. By far the most effective an immediate solution to limiting the damage of climate change is to simply to keep fossil fuels in the ground . People talk about the economic pain of doing this, but that economic pain is nothing compared to the impact of unmitigated climate change. Even though this would be painful, it is also by f…

Genuinely not being snide, I really do not know. Is it possible to produce steel on industrial scales without coal? I know early ironmaking (I live fairly close to Coalbrookdale!) used charcoal, but is that possible at a large scale?

It’s complicated: https://news.mit.edu/2025/decarbonizing-steel-tough-as-steel...

This is one of the stronger arguments for a carbon tax: if you can’t ignore externalities, people have strong incentives to use less (e.g. buying a car instead of an SUV or biking) and all of the alternative fuel and process work is going to be easier if the cost comparison is more even.

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